About playing live in sync

[kenoir]

Hi all:

I have this question which can't find a place to post and it's about doing live. How are the stars playing in time everytime on stage. Or how could we make everyone to play in sync during a recording? Everyone listen to the metronome? If this is the case, where do the metronome goes into and out to? In ear monitors?

I guess it's not enough by only listening to the background that getting played at the back right? It will be difficult if the backing track is just a synth pad.

Also, are there any tutorial that talks about how is it possible to send a midi signal with something that will trigger the effects and stuff to switch patches or value during a live situation? I'm sure they don't pay a few guys to keep their hands on the effectors and listen to the track carefully and strike the pedal board or racks in unison when the moment comes.

Do this technique got it's own name?

Lots of questions, thanks for you guys to read my post.

Kenoir

 

[Elton Bear]

The 'stars' practice until they're solid, as should every self-respecting band. If you do use a click track live, you could have it going to in-ear monitors, straight out of wedges, or even have just the drummer wearing headphones and everyone else follows him/her.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Do this technique got it's own name?

Watch a good band live in an intimate setting like a medium-sized club. I mean a good, experienced band with high-quality musicians, not some college band who's members average a couple of semesters of expereince wanking in their dorms with their instruments.

Watch them as they play and watch how they are constantly watching each other and sending little facial signals to each other and feeding off of each other's rhythms and energies. Half the time, they don't even realize they're doing it. They play in sync not because of precision, necessarily - even the best drummers will tend to vary tempos a bit - but because of unspoken communication and feedback between the members during the performance.

There is only one way to get to that level, and yes, it does have a name. Several names, in fact: it's called "Practice", a.k.a. "Work" (as in "working at it"), both of which require a higher-level routine called "Discipline".

What makes good musicians and performers good is that they eat, drink, breathe and sleep the stuff until they get it right, then they do it some more just for fun. Once thay have gone beyond mastering their instruments and maybe even their material - where they don't have to put their entire concentration on their own playing just to get it close to right - then they can devote enough attention during the performance to the rest of the band to facilitate that communication that allows the band to move as one, in much the same way as a school of fish does.

G.

 

[kenoir]

That's very true and it's what I've forgotten. While I was in Australia finishing my high school, that's what I've seen in my friend's band practice and I didn't notice that it's this force - the invisible and unspoken communication, drived me into watching them and stand by doing a lot of roadies work every time.

Thanks for letting me know of that force that I didn't recognize.

Kenoir

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

the invisible and unspoken communication, drived me into watching them and stand by doing a lot of roadies work every time.

I tell ya, that's half the fun I get out of doing live sound ad/or roadie work with the bands that I do. It's not the lousy pay scale, or getting to listen to yet another cover of The Staple's "I'll Take You There" for the millionth time .

It's in watching the band members do their thing. This includes everything from getting to watch my favorite guitar player's left-hand fingers do their magic up close to watching the interaction between the players and the real teamwork and "feel" that passes between them.

When you notice the drummer thow a unexpecued but purposeful slight lag or break into the beat and the bass player suddenly whips his head around to the drummer, gets a shit-eating grin on his face, and adjusts his style just slightly to match it - all within the space of a half a beat - and all of a sudden the band hits a subtly different groove that takes the performance to another level (one that unfortunately half the drunks in the audience will never even notice happened, but will notice enough to increase the applause at the end and wonder what happened), it's as beautiful to watch as a well-turned double play. Even a deaf person that could not hear the music would enjoy the visual performance and the professionalism.

Or when, as happened beautifully just last week with one of my bands, the guitar player breathes new life into a tired old cover. In this case it was Tom Petty's "American Girl". I never cared all that much for that song myself, and frankly, neither has the guitar player. Especially after hearing and playing it for the 3,742,998th time . But when it cam time for the extended riffing towards the end of that song, Jimbo (the git player) was in the zone at that moment and gave a high-energy, extra-extended riff that left his '71 Strat smoking and the audience picking their jaws up off the floor at the end. It was a sight and sound to behold; absolutely beautiful.

But what was just as interesting in it's own way was watching and hearing the way the rest of the band reacted to it themselves as he was doing his thang. The drummer got that wicked grin on his face (well, actually they all did), and his energy level followed right along. He didn't play harder or louder or faster, he played with precision and control; but the "feel" of his playing picked up an energy and the style adjusted slightly to counterpoint the new riffing style properly. Meanwhile the bass player just slowly drifed stage left, over by the keyboardist, giving Jimbo plenty of room to work. The keyboard player looked like a kid at Christmas and the bass player, who is no slouch on the strings himself, just bore down on his bass and went into this private zone where it was just him and Jimbo in his mind, matching each other bar for bar, beat for beat like someone jumping in on a swing dance on the dance floor.

The great unwashed in the audience probably never even noticed any of this going on and never realized that the band had - despite having run that song into the ground - never played it like that before. They probably went home figuring they practiced it that way a million times. But the fact is that it was a performance of a lifetime for that band on that song - they possibly may never play it quite that good and almost certainly will never play it exactly that way again; it was an on-the-fly, seat of the pants, pedal to the metal, unpracticed performance.

For an improv performance to sound like it was practiced a million times is, I think, a pretty good indication of the importance of that teamwork and subliminal stage communication. And for those of us who catch and appreciate that "performance behind the performance", it's a glorious thing to watch. A feast for the eyes to go with the more obvious feast for the ears.

I suddenly find myself disappointed that I don't have a gig to work tonight...

G.

 

[kenoir]

Very true, thanks for sharing, I'm feeling as glorious in the past.

Comparing those band spirit with the one I saw in this boring city, we have far more things to catch up.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

this boring city

Boise?

j/k.

Where you at?

G.

 

[kenoir]

Boise?

j/k.

Where you at?

G.

I live in Hong Kong.

We do not have a strong indie scene over here since everything is about bussiness. The indie band will disband because there's no bussiness opportunity for being an indie band, while keep working on their daily job does. So they start to form a band because they follow their sudden passion, get some expensive guitar, drill into the equipments instead of focusing on music itself.

We do not have education about music after high school starts, arts are not considered to be a major subject, there will have no music as a subject to choose there as u reach that stage.

Music bussiness is a total monopoly here, and they were copying this and that, placing their songs and make it a karaoke hit, but the notes are simply improvisation of broken chords, predictable chord cycle appear all the time. People who make those tracks are mostly hidden. Some people who produce record relies on the premade tracks which they bought from some bedroom producer. Sometimes, the composition is just a track which bought from the euro pop culture, or the japanese pop. It's really dead.

I want to see changes to be happened. While no one is expecting it.

I can see a bunch of people focusing more on the metal stuff, but pretty extreme. Usuaully they try to imitate big bands and that's how they start. So how are they going to develop? How are they going to keep themself interest in it. God knows.

Now, what if I do the producing, what if I do the promoting, what if I set up a show for them? Sure that's a long way to learn all these stuff, but I will keep on.

Thanks for your interest about my background. Nice to talk to u.

Kenoir

 

[seanr]

Recording live in the studio is a very different thing than playing live to an audience, especially if you intend to start and finish at the same tempo (that is, play to a click track). The problem is that guitarists and whatnot tend ot play to the drummer instead of the click track and then the drummer starts to listen to them. As soon as he wavers off the click at all, the whole thing is shot and you have to start over. The trick is to have everyone ignore the drums and play strictly to the click and likewise for the drummer.

Obviously you have to listen to eachother a bit, that's kind of the point of recording live, but in terms of timekeeping you all have to be totally focused on the click track.

That's how me and my band managed it anyway, practice makes perfect.

 

[kenoir]

I see different school of thoughts after I posted the questions.

I guess no one is right or wrong at here. However, it's mostly about the band's conciousness of each others. They wouldn't know how to keep each others in time as they first start. As they grow up, they would try to discover the method for that e.g. listen to a click, ask all other member to only listen to the drums etc. And they could further develop it develop, for example: watching a strobe light, watching their own music video etc.

A professional and mature band, were held together by this conciousness and it's also the cohession of the group. It's the science which created the art form.

Do anyone have suggestions about what is the science behind if they are using a click track? Do they put a click into a device and distribute it with headphone and splitters? What is used to generate the click usually? How to avoid from recording the click sound with the instruments during the session?

Thanks